Some three decades ago Tandi, my hometown, was a small settlement
with rows of houses and shops along either side of dirt-road that still runs as
east-west highway. The settlement gradually turned into a common market place
for the people of surrounding villages. Fringed by meadows, fruit groves and
forests, the town had flourished at the bank of stream, Budikhola, much wider then, where we used to swim and fish. Not
very far from the town in the west is the Barandhabar Forest, a wildlife corridor
that stretches up to mid hills in the north and the Rapti River in the south;
and across the river is huge tropical swathe of Chitwan National Park. Being
surrounded by dense meadows and forests, people often witnessed the wild beasts
in the town in the past. One fine morning I saw people succumbed with panic as
the mammoth rhino appeared at their doorstep. Traffic was halted for some two
hours creating havoc for people and bewilderment for the animal. Rhino found
the way north-west of the highway to escape towards Barandabhar forest.
